“Quick” Fabrication Jobs

Steel tube was purchased and fabricated into stanchions and railings. Lazarette lockers and chain locker was were finished bulwark capping was bent into shape which took ages at it was 50mm by 5mm flat bar which was hard to work.

The next question was were we going to have a doghouse or not? A week of debate followed. Bruce Roberts steel boat building books were read again and the conclusion was that we definitely needed a doghouse.

I contacted Bruce again and he said he had stock designs and all we had to do was choose one. What he did not say was that he wanted £750 for the drawings. I laughed a lot and decided to design my own. It took until March 2000 to complete the doghouse and all those little jobs that did not sound important enough to finish. At long last I could move to the inside of the boat.

Here bulkheads were welded in place for the engine room, forward shower and heads, aft cabin, galley and navigation station.

Next was the question of tanks. I had thought a lot about these and although it would have been cheaper to make them an integral part of the hull I had heard lots of stories about fuel being contaminated by steel tanks, water tasting bad and a lot more.

So I decided to invest in plastic tanks.I had been to see TekTanks at the boat show and was very impressed with their all plastic hand built tanks for both diesel and water. In addition to these I also wanted a grey and a black water holding tank as I had read a lot about these being required in the eastern Mediterranean.

TekTanks were very helpful and did all the design all I had to do was give them the measurements and they did the rest. They advised on how to fix the tanks to the boat, how to run the fillers, vents and diesel and water take offs.

I was very pleased with the design and their expertise. The order was placed and delivery was to be later in the year when I had had the boat shot blasted and primed.So began the task of building the tank mounts and welding into place the beams which would eventually carry the floor.

After this stand pipes of the correct diameter and wall thickness were welded onto the through hull holes previously cut to take the seacocks for engine water intake, heads intake, and both grey and black water holding tank pump out.

The plan was to have all the grey water drain into the grey water holding tank first and also the heads pump directly into the black water holding tank. These could then be pumped out at a convenient time allowing only one seacock to be needed instead of many. I do not like holes in my hull.